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The cowards who are buying CBS have canceled “The Late Show with Steohen Colbert” after the 2025-26 season.
CBS will get out of the Late night talk show business after four decades.
They say it’s budget related. But we all know that pro Trump new owner David Ellison is protecting Donald Trump from Colbert’s keen satire.
Streaming networks like Netflix, Amazon, will fight to bring Colbert over.
But the dismantling of CBS has begun. This is the opening salvo. Ellison, whose father is in business with Trump, will gut William Paley’s legacy like a fish.
Jon Stewart and The Daily Show are next. But the real damage will be at CBS News, already compromised by settling Trump’s lawsuit against “60 Minutes.”
What damage Ellison will do to Paramnount Pictures and Simon & Schuster remains a frightening question.
Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham have called a truce. The two members of Fleetwood Mac have each issued conciliatory messages on social media.
Stevie wrote: “And if you go forward…”
Lindsey responded: “I’ll meet you there.”
Hallelujah!
The long ago former couple fell out a couple of years ago. Buckingham left the group. Nicks declared she’d been badly treated by him for years. He disputed that. An ugly divorce ensued.
In the interim, Christine McVie died. It looked like the end for The Mac. But now a final tour is possible. Mick Fleetwood and John McVie must be dancing. Hundreds of millions of dollars are involved.
Fleetwood Mac continues to be a huge money maker even semi retirement. Their Greatest Hits album is always on the charts. Their songs are heard in commercials constantly. A reunion would be more than welcomed.
You know Steve Miller. Some people call him “Maurice.” His hits include “The Joker,” “Fly Like an Eagle,” “Jet Airliner.”
He just cancelled the entire tour of the Steve Miller Band because of weather. He’s afraid of storms.
Of course, almost all the shows were set for the indoors. A few were in amphitheaters, near baseball stadiums where teams play no matter what’s happening. If Steve suddenly got spooked by lightning and thunder, they could have rebooked the outdoor locations.
Miller is a well known eccentric but I’m not sure if insurance will pay off a tour cancelled for this reason. Is there something else? It seems like tickets were selling well, but obviously there was disagreement about something other than meteorology.
This is what he wrote on Instagram:
“Dear Steve Miller Band fans,
You make music with your instincts
You live your life by your instincts
Always trust your instincts…
The Steve Miller Band has cancelled all of our upcoming tour dates.
The combination of extreme heat, unpredictable flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes and massive
forest fires make these risks for you our audience, the band and the crew unacceptable. So…
You can blame it on the weather…The tour is cancelled.
Don’t know where, don’t know when… We hope to see you all again.
It’s likely Trump was lying or overstating, what he does at every press conference and speech. (He also blamed Joe Biden for hiring Jerome Powell, when it was Trump who did the hiring.)
Coca Cola issued a classic response to Trump’s claim: “We appreciate President Trump’s enthusiasm for our iconic Coca-Cola brand,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “More details on new innovative offerings within our Coca-Cola product range will be shared soon.”
In other words, pay no attention to the fat man in the blue suit.
I told you earlier that Trump’s unusual interest in the sugar question is likely connected to one of the Republican party’s biggest donors, Jose “Pepe” Fanjul, who owns all the cane sugar in sight. Fanjul is worth $8 billion and never saw a Republican cause or candidate he didn’t like.
Trump’s Cane Mutiny has nothing to do with dietary issues. After all, he eats fast food and swills soft drinks as if he were on Death Row. Also, according to all the sources I’ve consulted, there is no real difference between fructose and cane. But the former is cheaper than the latter. The introduction of cane sugar would drive up prices to the consumer.
Was this just another fake out from Trump, a way of getting attention away from Epstein and the files? Probably it was the same as Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship and a half dozen other things. Whatever happened to Panama, and Greenland?
“Gypsy” starring Audra McDonald is closing early, on August 1th This abrupt announcement came tonight.
Despite great reviews, “Gypsy” has struggled to keep an audience. The musical played at 61% capacity last week after not receiving any Tony Awards.
The announcement seems like it was last minute considering producers had just announced that Montego Glover, who subbed for McDonald on her vacation week, was picking up Sunday matinees as well.
“Gypsy” was selling tickets through October 5th and while current sales were down, things didn’t look so bad in August. But inside information obviously prevailed.
McDonald is currently starring in “The Gilded Age” on HBO.
Meanwhile, things are a mess at “Call Me Izzy” at Roundabout Theater where they just announced an extension despite slow sales.
They played at just 28% capacity last week. It wasn’t just because star Jean Smart said she had a knee injury and her standby stood in.”
“Izzy,” an original play that got also got very positive reviews, hit a peak the week of June 22nd of $604K. But the party was over quickly. The week of July 6th, grosses were down to just $233K. Last week, with Izzy being played by capable substitute Johanna Day, receipts came to just $113K.
Smart was just nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Actress in a Comedy in “Hacks.” She’s won six Emmys already including three for “Hacks.” She’ll likely win again this September. The idea of putting her in a one woman show in a play no one knows anything about was brave but tricky. She should have been off Broadway in a much smaller house.
Alas, “Izzy” will likely close before its limited run is over on August 18th. That’s if Smart returns at all, or the injured knee becomes the reason to close up shop. As good as Day might be, she’s not the reason for this production.
“Gypsy” joins a slew of shows that have shut down since the Tony Awards including “Boop” and “Smash.”
What’s going on? Lack of tourists. As much as Times Square is filled with crowds milling around and taking pictures with Elmo, foreign travelers who’d be the Broadway audience are staying away. The reason, of course, is the horrific reign of Donald Trump. Foreigners aren’t coming to the US because they are either afraid of Trump or angry with him. Canadians, who make up a large part of Broadway audiences, staying home and boycotting the US.
My advice? Go see these two shows immediately before they pack up.
Something’s definitely off with Hugh Jackman’s Radio City shows.
The “Wolverine” actor plays three shows this weekend — Friday night, Saturday matinee, and evening.
There are large numbers of empty seats at every show. Some are going for as low as $35.
I thought when I wrote about lagging ticket sales a couple of weeks ago that the promoters would do something to gin up interest.
But the sound of silence has been deafening. The result is that Jackman is going to be lonely this weekend.
What’s the cause of this apathetic response? Is it too hot? It”s not too expensive. Are Jackman’s female fans turned off because of his contentious public divorce from long time wife Debra-Lee Furness?
Meantime, tickets go on sale Friday for Sutton Foster’s December run at Cafe Carlyle. The seats should sell fast, but we’ll see if she has trouble too considering Jackman left Furness for her.
Also just announced at Cafe Carlyle: the famed folk, rock (and classical) musician Judy Collins from September 9th to the 20th. What an amazing opportunity to see a true legend up close!
Today Donald Trump wrote something on Truth Social that seemed ridiculous:
“I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so,” he wrote, “I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!”
Why would Coca Cola drop their fructose syrup in favor of cane. Simple: One of Trump’s biggest Republican donors owns all the cane sugar in Florida, and then some.
Jose “Pepe” Fanjul owns the Florida Crystals Corporation. Fanjul, who’s Cuban by birth and spends a lot of time at an estate in the Dominican Republic, runs his family’s empire. is the second eldest of the Fanjul brothers, who control a sugar and real estate business valued at $8.2 billion.
Fanjul is the vice chairman and president of Flo-Sun, a Fanjul family-owned sugar growing and refining company, and of Florida Crystals, according to Wikipedia.
According to Google AI: “[The Fanjuls] own and farm over 190,000 acres of land, including two sugar mills, a sugar refinery, a rice mill, and a packaging and distribution center. Florida Crystals also operates the largest biomass renewable power plant in North America. Additionally, they are the only producer of certified organic sugar grown and milled in the U.S. and the largest Regenerative Organic Certified farm in the country.”
The Fanjuls have contributed millions upon millions to Trump and all Republican candidates. If I had the time or a staff to add up all the donations listed on OpenSecrets.org we could give you a total and you’d fall over while reading this article. There are so many pages that finally one reads “Maximum Limit 500.”
OpenSecrets calculates an average of $1.1 million a year by the Fanjul Corporation for lobbying. They say Fanjul Corp’s 2024 donations came to $2.9 milliion. About 99% of the donations were to Republicans. There was also a $1 million donate to Make America Great Again.
The largest single donation was to the WinRed PAC in 2020 for $85,000.
Everyone in New York — meaning the Upper East Side — knows the Fanjuls. They are fun, social people who split their time between the city, Palm Beach, and the DR. Trump has known them a long time. So the idea that Trump is now arm twisting soda companies to use cane sugar is no surprise — except to the 99% of people who don’t know the background.
And you thought Trump was gulping Coke for his health!
The third “Knives Out” movie has set a world premiere.
“Wake Up Dead Man” will bring an all star cast to the Toronto Film Festival in September.
Daniel Craig returns in Rian Johnson’s murder mystery with a big list of names including Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Josh O’Connor, Mila Kunis, Andrew Scott, and Thomas Haden Church.
That will be some red carpet!
TIFF announced a few other premieres today, with more coming on Monday.
They include “Roofman,” Derek Cianfrance’s new release with Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, Ben Mendelsohn, LaKeith Stanfield, Peter Dinklage and Uzo Aduba; and Paul Greengrass’s “The Lost Bus” with Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrara.
Chloe Zhao’s “Hamnet” will show in Toronto, but it seems like the world premiere will be in Telluride.
Justin Bieber’s surprise album release, “Swag,” is going to finish at number 2 on Friday with just 165,000 copies sold.
Almost all of those are from streaming. He only sold 6,500 paid downloads. Yeesh.
Bieber was hamstrung by having no physical product available. No CDs or LPs. “Swag” just exists in the air.
Justin would have finished first but Travis Scott hot-footed him with his own surprise album called “Jack Boys 2.”
“Jack Boys 2” is being pegged at 250,000 copies, almost all physical. But you won’t see “Jack Boys” on any actual chart leading up to this moment. That’s because it was sold as part of a merchandise box with a cap and a mask or a shirt and I don’t know what else.
“Jack Boys 2” by itself only sold 60,000 copies. But packaged up with that other mishegos pushed up the sales to 250,000.
Bieber could cry foul. But he has no manager. (Maybe his billionaire wife, Hailey, is calling shots.) So there was no preparation for “Swag,” no marketing. This is why Justin can’t afford a shirt, a belt, pants that fit, a decent roach clip, or a clue.
Bieber’s one consolation here is a modest single hit with a song called “Daisies,” currently number 4 on iTunes.
